While here in the States Apple-tablet rumors are churning the waters as turbulently as a pool of piranhas into which has been dumped a truckload of honey-dipped hamsters, over in the Far East the iWhatever's impending release is being treated as a fait accompli.
Even though, as reports suggest, Apple's device is months late. …

COMMENTS

iS late

nothing new. Will probably turn up with cracked glass and need at least 5 driver updates to get the graphics working properly, will have built in coma mode and when you do eventually log in it will clear all your data.

Tried apple - never again.

But Skeletor will be happy and his minions will be praise him. All praise the Big Jobbie!!

Never had that problem

OK, knock on wood but I never had problems with my iPhone. Sorry to spoil your rant with some personal experience.

However, I do not claim my own personal, not from say-so-or-internet-chat-derived experience is representative, just that I *personally* have yet to experience problems with the iPhone 3GS. It just works, and does what I (again, personally) need from a smart phone. About the only thing that annoys me is that you cannot disable the screen turning, but I can live with that.

However, there is maybe a reason for that lack of problems: I rarely buy a new product immediately. That's why I use Windows XP, slightly aged but patched versions of Ubuntu and OpenSuSE, and that's why I have an iPhone 3GS instead of the iPhone 1 or 3G - I let others do the beta testing.

I get God knows how many conversations about any new technology like Windows 7 where the underlying subtext always leads to "but it doesn't actually all work and I don't quite how to fix that and I know you're technical and into computers and I actually fully expect you to rescue me from the crap I have inflicted upon myself but I don't really want to say so because it would mean you could ask me for a favour" - which firmly get redirected to "I'm no longer that deep into technology these days".

So I'll happily wait a while while the fashion victims fall over themselves to pay premium prices so they can show off to each other. And afterwards I buy what I *need* and know that works for me. Same with a new iWhatsit, I'm not going to speculate or read every publication about it - I'll see it when it appears..

Ignore button?

Jolly good!

I don't really buy the notion of delays but I do buy into the notion of Apple quality control and quality assurance.

Waiting a little bit longer for Apple to get it right is totally worthwhile and ain't no doubt about it: Apple seems to have been catapulted into "doing it first, getting it right, getting it mainstream" and there is no real harm in that.

It will be interesting to see how the financial market in terms of Apple's share prices goes.

Equally there ain't no doubt about it that mobile comms, information communications technologies, the cloud, software as a service, ... is all queing up for the next big thing probably at commercial and personal levels.

So ... in that sense it bodes well for the Apple to take its time, get it right, get the quality and user experience right and do an iPhone on the iWhatever.

Wonder how much it will cost though and what the tie ins to services might cost.

On the downside I hope Apple avoids the iDisk, Mobile Me stuff that impacted less than positively.

Errr... @AC

"So that'd be why the iPhone needed to wait until the 3GS until it was actually a good phone by modern smartphone tech-spec standards? Except it's UI, which was better than pretty much any other phone."

Congratulations for totally missing the point of why the iPhone is successful! As far as the average consumer goes:

"modern smartphone tech-specs" = Geeky pissing contest

UI - whether you can actually make use of any of the features included in the phone.

@AC: "doing it first, getting it right"?!

> So that'd be why the iPhone needed to wait until the 3GS until it was actually a good phone by modern smartphone tech-spec standards? Except it's UI, which was better than pretty much any other phone.

My iPhone first generation is a GREAT phone - it has lasted longer than any phone I had ever owned (the rest all got cracked displays, broken cases, etc.) Mapping is reasonable, network connectivity is better than the other carriers I had used before, and I use a real browser (instead of one of those stupid browsers that were built into my other phones that did not use real HTML.)

Apple got it right on their firsts release - and that expensive piece of equipment was worth every penny.

I'll keep it as long as I can, since it costs $10 less a month than the newer iPhone's, to boot!

I had a dell xps m1730

superb, if bulky, luggable, until the graphics subsystem burnt a hole into the motherboard, then back it went to the particular dell reseller for a refund. laptops are rather fragile beasts, and no manufacturer really shines all that much in this regard

didn't Apple have problems with its latest iMacs too?

anyway, tablet pcs are exciting, as no-one's really succeeded with them before. microsoft have their codex thing out, which also looks cool, and a mate of mine has glued two oqos to a large piece of leather for homade dual screen joy. whatever apple produce, it may not do an awful lot (just like the netbook), but it'll look fine and within six months you'll find it on more than a few coffeetables

Change of Vapourware obsession please

If I had a dollar (even one of our paltry NZ version) for every time El Reg had written a breathless puff piece on the iPad in the last two months, I'd have enough to by myself a nice shiny MS Courier.

Web registration

Not a bad thing

As others have mentioned, there is actually some QA going on. Plus releasing it in the New Year gives them a whole 10 or 11 months to fix drivers, update & patch the OS etc before they can turn up the marketing for Xmas 2010. The iPod took a few years to gain momentum, the iPhone less so. The iSlate could get to the top in less than a year.

It depends on how you think of it...

@armanfromMars - I'd agree with you, thinking of a tablet as a laptop replacement. However, thinking of it as a mobile internet device / document reader / netbook replacement, I think there could be a market, if it's done right.

Current ebook readers are pretty limited in functionality, while the form factor of netbooks makes them difficult to use in some places. A tablet would be ideal to use while held in the crook of your arm, on the bus, on the sofa or in bed. With a decent touch interface, web browsing should be a breeze, and the bigger screen would be better for sites that don't yet make allowances for smartphones (or ebooks containing many diagrams).

Want. One.

Actually, what I'm hoping for is a combination of the handwriting recognition capability of my beloved TecraM4, but with higher specs & OSX. I really hope Apple aren't going down the touchscreen route alone without enabling a pen.

Remember folks ..

Before everyone gets carried away, just a reminder that the tablet pc is nothing new.

Apple have not invented anything NEW here.

Please search "Viliv X70" or "Archos 9"

The iStale WILL be popular simply because of all the iSheep zombies sleeping outside apple HQ waiting for Steve Jobs to throw them more stale breadcrumbs

Equally, iDrone users will be queuing around the block, credit card in hand, buying apples latest "cool" device. Not because they a need for it, but because they are sucked into the hype perpetuated by all the iGeeks whipping up hysteria

More Lock-In coming

This will just be another platform for itunes deployed lock-in content. They will use this to push a proprietary API based content nugget, just like thier new LP feature. Only this time it will be for 'interactive magazines and books' , something that could easily be done using HTML or any number of open standards. This will basically be a highly controlled yet prettier internet that costs 99 cents per page a day or something equally stupid. I hope it fails miserably, but it wont. Apple has more and more iSheep that are compelled to buy every incremental offering.

Future now!

If you wouldn't belong to the 7% internet users who actually *do* something (like writing comments) but to the remaining 93% who just *consume* and hardly ever type anything else than a search string for Google or maybe a once-sentence email you'd immediately see what a tablet is about.

People hate keyboards, they hate buttons, they hate overlapping windows and multitasking and they *dread* settings screens and options and licence numbers. They want a shiny, buttonless device they can look at and where they can tap at things to have a closer look and they want a simple one-stop shop to buy cheap things that just work then. And each day, when my work is done, I want one too. I want technology that looks like magic, because all technology that doesn't is just bad technology. God, it's nearly 2010 and what most companies are trying to sell us is just 20th century stuff with a fresh coat of paint. Without Apple and their loyal iSheep-army smartphones today would have 102 keys on the keypad and would come with a floppy drive.

Without the iSheep...

Actually, I'd like a plug-in keyboard for my old Nokia phone. It is really tedious writing messages with the numeric keypad, and god knows their PC-link software is a pile of steaming crud...

You must face the facts of one thing though - much of the hype surrounding Apple is just that - hype. Things that look good, but essentially are not really that much different from anything else available. Pro-Apple fanbois might have a lot to say here, so in response I could mention the difficulties involved in getting music onto an iPod without using some sort of software (usually iTunes). Because it has a database. Funny, so does my Zen and that Technika thingy. The difference is these refresh/rebuild the database once you pull the player out of the USB port. You want to talk about ease of use, you want to think about things like that. I can "just copy" stuff to/from my music players, on any computer. The only requirement is that the Zen needs an MTP driver - but there's always the SD card interface... It... Just... Works... And it isn't Apple. Wow.

Am I to understand from posts here that the iPhone can't do MMS? You're kidding, right? That, and texts, and the odd email plus a starchart applet are about all I expect from my phone... besides the obvious make/receive calls.

Don't think I'm a screaming anti-Apple wannabe. I'll give credit to those who create a good device. I just happen to feel that Apple is more pretty packaging than perfect product. Or read the above posts and notice repeated references to display damage. How do you think that would read if we were talking about, say, Dell? Nobody is perfect. Apple included.

Hey, guys; didn't you forget something...

I HEART BILL GATES LOL OMG ROFL

I'm mister microsoft, me.

But I must admit I love my iPhone.

Until you've actually lived with one for a week, you can't really judge. All the people who had iPhones, then jumped ship to BlackBerrys et al, are all back with their iPhones now. Well, except business types.

iWant

I use my iPod touch for casual web browsing round the house. A bigger screen (and hence a better keyboard) would be very nice.

But then I've always thought tablets were the right way to go for some applications - "a glorified display window" is about right but I have a use for one of them and a robust iWhatever with some decent forms software, maybe handwriting recognition and a hardware interface for mini scanners / printers could push into those niches Psion occupies as well as mobile working for e.g. local authority staff who spend a lot of time on site visits.

My housemate got an iPhone 3Gs a month or two ago and wants to go back to his Blackberry - I don't think they make nearly such good phones as they do, um, GDWs.